Transcript of cartoon:
A woman with glasses and a slightly frightened, anxious expression is in the foreground, speaking directly to the reader.
Behind her, on the left, are three angry student protestors, yelling stuff we don’t hear. A caption identifies them as “college students.”
Also behind her, on the right, are three wealthy-looking white men in suits – one of them is President Trump – who also look angry and are yelling things we don’t hear. A caption identifies them as “governors, senators, president.”
WOMAN: Both sides have scary radicals! So what’s the difference?
By the way, this cartoon went through substantial changes since I first posted it on Patreon – click here if you want to see the earlier version.
One is a bunch of greedy, selfish asshats and the other a bunch of delusional schmucks short-sightetly allying themselves with a ideology that will eventually turn against them?
I think this version of the comic is far superior to the original version. But even so, I’m feeling a bit disquieted by it, because I can’t help but read it as “young people vs. old people”, and, if it were not for the clear caricature of trump here, I could easily see the same cartoon appear in 2015 letting us know how oppressed the college students are when all they wanted to do was listen to a lecture by Richard Spencer.
I actually liked the original better. The degree to which colleges in general are dominated by liberals is totally overblown. Sure, Berkely and a few other are. But there are a lot of colleges and universities which are very conservative. The idea that colleges and universities in general are super lefty is an anti-intellectual, anti-science myth, which allows debate over facts which ought to be non-political, like whether global warming is real and whether access to birth control lowers rates of abortion.
Kate, you’re not the only person who has told me they liked the original better. I may have made a mistake changing it; but it the end, although I listen to and consider feedback, I have to listen more to my own instincts. Even though they may be mistaken.